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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux

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One thing I have always appreciated regarding the OT and the Jewish faith is that they do not take every part of scripture as the literal Word of God.....

Says who?

While that is true of certain sects of Judaism, the converse is equally applicable.

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ORIGINAL: njlauren
the observant Jew is to spend his or her life deciding what God wants.

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ORIGINAL: Rule

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ORIGINAL: njlauren
the observant Jew is to spend his or her life deciding what God wants.

The Divine is not permitted to want anything, as that would interfere with the free will of the entities in our universe.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
I want your house.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
Does that in any way limit your freewill or your ability to tell me no?

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ORIGINAL: njlauren

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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux

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One thing I have always appreciated regarding the OT and the Jewish faith is that they do not take every part of scripture as the literal Word of God.....

Says who?

While that is true of certain sects of Judaism, the converse is equally applicable.

Even Orthodox Jews don't believe that for example Genesis is literal, the Talmudic commentaries and from what Orthodox Jews have told me is that they believe that represents what God made happened, which is quite different. One of the things that makes Judaism unique is one of its fundamental duties is to ask each day what God wants us to do, Judaism has a long tradition of commentary and rethinking what is going on.Rabbinical Judaism that took over from the old temple Judaism is based on the idea that a Rabbi is a teacher, but the observant Jew is to spend his or her life deciding what God wants.

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ORIGINAL: Rule

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
I want your house.

The Divine may provide you with that opportunity.

However, your first spiritual command to the Divine ought to be that you want me to have a house. After that your original spiritual request may become feasible.

I recommend that you want me to have a twenty million dollar house.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
Does that in any way limit your freewill or your ability to tell me no?

It is interference in what I do and thus introducing a flaw in the course of my life and into the destiny of the universe. For this reason the Divine is not permitted to want.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
My desiring your house in no way interferes with anything you do; and it changes absolutely nothing in the course of your life or universal destiny. See me wanting? Nothing whatsoever about your life has changed.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
Whatever the Creator desires of His creation changes nothing until the creation itself chooses to change.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
Whatever the Creator desires of His creation changes nothing until the creation itself chooses to change. The creation does not have to change nor will we even know what He desires unless we seek, desire and ask for his interference in our lives.

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ORIGINAL: Rule

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
My desiring your house in no way interferes with anything you do; and it changes absolutely nothing in the course of your life or universal destiny. See me wanting? Nothing whatsoever about your life has changed.

The Divine is obliged to be impartial, to be neutral. To not be so, would cause fraud and false play.

He IS neutral that is why he does not interfere in your life unless you have agreed to allow Him in.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
Whatever the Creator desires of His creation changes nothing until the creation itself chooses to change.

The Creator was not the Divine, but a pagan god, i.e. a human. Within the context of the magical paradigm the Creator of course was identical with the Divine. Thus we may extrapolate from the Creator to the Divine. It is known that the Creator created humans and gods because he was lonely, and therefore we may infer that the Divine created the universe because it was lonely.

According to your faith. My faith differs. My Divine, my Creator, my Heavenly Father, my God; are all One in the same..

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY
Whatever the Creator desires of His creation changes nothing until the creation itself chooses to change. The creation does not have to change nor will we even know what He desires unless we seek, desire and ask for his interference in our lives.

The Divine is not permitted to interfere in our lives on its own behalf. It can only use us as instruments of its workings in response to the desire of another entity in our world and universe.

God is permitted to do anything He pleases. He chooses to only interfere in plans and course of our lives when he is invited.

My desire X caused the Divine to two years later make the local health insurance to offer free tonsilectomies, to make my mother decide to make use of that offer for me and some of my siblings, caused our physician to agree to her wish, caused the surgeon to agree to her wish (he got paid to mutilate children after all), and caused me to have a massive bleeding a week after the surgery, as a result of which I 'died', as was necessary for my desire X to manifest.

If that is how you choose to see it that is fine. I call it prayer and it is a request for God's intervention in my life. And yes human beings do play a role in helping to bring about the desires and requests of others. Spiritually we are all connected and as such we can have much influence in how God works in each other's lives. However; it is God who actually works through us. He chooses when, who and how to work. My faith teaches that the heart of the very king is in the hands of God and He turns it however he wants.

As for the Jews, they clearly suck at knowing what the Divine intends.

Most of us do.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY

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ORIGINAL: Rule
they clearly suck at knowing what the Divine intends.

Most of us do.

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ORIGINAL: Rule
The Creator was not the Divine, but a pagan god, i.e. a human. <snip>

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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ORIGINAL: Milesnmiles

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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ORIGINAL: Milesnmiles

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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I have to decide if it is worthwhile to discuss this with you. This is not the first time I've had this discussion, not my first rodeo. It seems this subject upsets you and you maybe even have a "dog in this fight". I do not, I just enjoy discussing it and have no vested interest in the subject and could argue either side but usually defend God and the Bible because there always seems to be more on the other side. Most of what you say is new to you but it is "old stuff" to me. So if you feel willing to stretch the discussion and not just keep repeating the same things over and over again without thinking about and addressing the points I've given, lets go for it but if not then I give up, you win, I've never read such insightful arguments in my life. ;-)

It is 'old stuff' to you and you still evade rather than try to explore the issue. If you would reply to my comments I would happily move on. Your idea of insightful arguments seems to be to issue quotes from the Bible. Instead you adopt a pose of transparently phony superiority. Pathetic.

See what I mean I ask you one thing are you going to be civil and this is what I get.

Thanks but no thanks. If you want to read my discussions with others to see my answers fine but if you can't be civil then I'm done with you.

Like I said; "I give up, you win, I've never read such insightful arguments in my life." ;-)

Hmmmm. . . your feathers are ruffled rather easily it seems. Truth is I asked you to account for the loving god in the face of innocent children suffering illness and death in nature and your response was to blame people who live in zones of danger. As if there is anywhere we can all gather to avoid tumultuous weather events. So, no attempt by you to explore the goodness or potency of god. You give me a cockamamie answer about personal responsibility that I have seen appear on these boards zillions of times in discussing politics. And you call me uncivil because I will not accept such an inane and irrelevant reply to my question. In addition you posture that it is all so beneath you. Do you not see your own responsibility in dodging the issue? Do not blame me for your feeble response. If you asked me if I am going to be civil it was in your dreams not in this thread. You add insult by making shit up.

I've tried to be nice, I've asked if we could have a reasonable discussion, I've asked you to be civil, I've even tried forfeit to your your insightful arguments and you still keep up with this harassment. Should we ask the moderators to check and see if I've treated you as badly as you say I have? ;-)

I am not the one who complained about being treated badly. Don't slide that on to me, Slick. I complained about your absurd answers. So, please stop whining about how you are treated on this board. It ill becomes a grown man.

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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I believe Jesus. Everyone else is suspect. Jesus was from the lineage of Israel. I am not. My personal faith does not require me to believe in the Old Testament, dogma, Judaism, religion or anything else that was not taught by Jesus (and even then it must be interpreted the correct way.) Why are we to believe it? I believe it because I choose to believe. If you choose not to, that is fine for you. I am not attempting to proselytize you or convince you of anything. I am very comfortable with the notion of each person choosing for themselves what they believe or don't believe.

None of us is trying to proselytize and certainly each will believe from their own personal history and character. We are simply debating issues and ambiguities here. For example there seems to be ample doubt that Jesus was in fact of the lineage of Israel. The story of his birth in Bethlehem and of the mysterious census that brought his parents there is greatly suspect, esp. since he was otherwise known as Jesus of Nazareth.

I don't think it really matters what his race was. Incidentally, I don't believe most people who are "from the lineage of Israel" today would quite fit the bill of being from the lineage spoken of in the Old Testament.

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ORIGINAL: njlauren

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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I believe Jesus. Everyone else is suspect. Jesus was from the lineage of Israel. I am not. My personal faith does not require me to believe in the Old Testament, dogma, Judaism, religion or anything else that was not taught by Jesus (and even then it must be interpreted the correct way.) Why are we to believe it? I believe it because I choose to believe. If you choose not to, that is fine for you. I am not attempting to proselytize you or convince you of anything. I am very comfortable with the notion of each person choosing for themselves what they believe or don't believe.

None of us is trying to proselytize and certainly each will believe from their own personal history and character. We are simply debating issues and ambiguities here. For example there seems to be ample doubt that Jesus was in fact of the lineage of Israel. The story of his birth in Bethlehem and of the mysterious census that brought his parents there is greatly suspect, esp. since he was otherwise known as Jesus of Nazareth.

Especially since Luke and Matthew don't agree on Jesus provenanence. The whole Jesus being born in Bethlehem is to tie him to David, as is tracing Joseph, his human father, to the Davidic line. In part this is to convince people Jesus is the messiah of the OT, and will reunite the kingdoms and such.

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ORIGINAL: njlauren
...
The story of his birth in Bethlehem and of the mysterious census that brought his parents there is greatly suspect, esp. since he was otherwise known as Jesus of Nazareth.
...

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ORIGINAL: MsMJAY

Yes. I noticed that myself. Particularly I noticed that earlier there was one Christian who argued that Jesus is not God then later, another Christian made the argument that Jesus is God. I'm a Christian myself and that even confuses the heck out me. I read recently that there are over 33,000 different sects of Christianity.

Maybe all of them are true Christianity. Maybe there is no true Christianity. Maybe "true" is just a word people throw around to explain away the atrocities that some Christians have committed.

Maybe "true Christianity" is really just a bunch of diverse people (the good, the bad, and the ugly) each trying to find some connection with God (as they understand Him) in the best way their mortal minds and bodies will allow them to.

...... and the Bible is anything BUT obvious.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

FR

Has anyone counted how many different 'true' versions of Christianity have so far been promoted in this thread? Fascinating, really. Just one thread, in the space of a couple of weeks. Now, how many 'true' versions of Christianity would that suggest over two thousand years?

Cue the next dismal old bore who wants to tell us what 'true Christianity is all about' - which, of course, will be 'obvious' if only we'd all read the Bible without prejudice.

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ORIGINAL: njlauren
The trinity which established Christ as Father, son and holy spirit wrapped in one is not in the Bible. Jesus says he is the son of God, the line about him saying he is God is a mistranslation, and nowhere in scripture does it say anything about the trinity. The so called Jonnite Coda in John seems to imply it, but one of the problems with that is it was added later to John, probably to bolster the trinity view starting to take hold.

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ORIGINAL: Rule
...
The Divine is obliged to be impartial, to be neutral. To not be so, would cause fraud and false play.
...